To start, could you introduce yourself and tell us about your connection to the Refugee and Migrant Education (RME) Network?

I am Alfred Babo, Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at Fairfield University. I am also the Director of the International Studies Program. As a refugee scholar originally from Cote d’Ivoire, I have been in the field of refugee studies and working with refugee organizations like Scholars at Risk and Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants through research and teaching. I learned about RME through the Fairfield University Center for Social Impact and its Humanitarian Action Program. And in 2024, I applied and was accepted to attend the November Conference in Rome.

What led you and your co-editor to bring together Exiled Scholars in Western Academia: Refugees or Intellectuals? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)? 

I co-founded the initiative Share the Platform (https://www.sharetheplatform.org/) with three colleagues, Prof. Anita Fabos, Creg Mortley, and Leora Khan in 2019. It seeks  to amplify the voices of refugees and immigrants in matters related to their conditions. I realized that, within academic and the broader production of knowledge, very few exiled scholars have had the opportunity to engage intellectually with and critically analyze their conditions. When I hosted  my colleague Sayed Hassan (now my co-editor) at Fairfield University in spring 2022, we agreed to develop a project that would provide exiled scholars with a platform to reflect on their situations through rigorous scholarly analyses. 

Your volume brings together first-hand narratives from refugee scholars across disciplines. What inspired you to focus on personal narratives as a key part of the book, and how do you see them contributing  to reshaping conversations around the tensions between refugees working in academia and humanitarian discourse?

Personal narratives are key to the work we intend to share with the audience. However, as scholars, we aimed to go beyond the “exotic” nature of storytelling. Instead, we aimed to frame these narratives within  intellectual reflection by refugees themselves. This is why we drew on an auto-ethnography approach. By reshaping the personal narratives with academic discussions and discourses, the contributors to this volume did not just tell their stories; they used them to question central concepts in the field of refugee studies, like humanitarianism, integration, exclusion, knowledge production, transnationalism, etc.  

Beyond sharing their first-hand experience, what role do you see refugee scholars playing in reshaping research agendas, pedagogy, and institutional priorities in academia?

In this volume, the authors and contributors are calling on the audience –  especially higher education institutions’ top administrators, managers of refugee agencies and organizations, and governmental agencies – to recognize or even center their actions on the intellectual capacities and skills of these refugees after the emergency response. What must be a priority for host institutions is how these intellectuals, who happen to be refugees, can meaningfully contribute to research, teaching, and the broader development and production of knowledge as part of our shared universal intellectual capacity. 

For NGOs, universities, and independent researchers working  to support displaced academics, what practical insights or recommendations do the contributions in this volume offer?

NGOs, universities, and other institutions supporting and working with and for refugee scholars must prioritize these intellectuals’ academic knowledge and skills to contribute to research, teaching, and the development and production of universal knowledge. In practice, there are many limitations and elements of exclusion based on social and cultural categories such as race, language, ethnicity, scholarship. The authors of this book urge  Western institutions, which have generously welcomed exiled scholars, to go further by actively dismantling these barriers and creating space where refugee scholars can thrive as intellectuals and colleagues.  

What long and short-term shifts in humanitarian discourse around refugees would be most valuable in academic settings, either based on your own experiences or the content of the book? 

In the short term, we hope to see higher education institutions and refugee agencies place greater emphasis on the intellectual capacities of exiled scholars to work on their integration. This can be best achieved by sharing the platform of their reflections and actions with the refugees themselves. 

In the long term, a deep reflection on the concept of refugees and humanitarianism is a very meaningful project to consider based on real-life experiences. Our book offers a foundation  for such a reflection on what should be the new humanitarianism in an era of fear of others, especially anti-immigrant and refugee policies in the West. 

Education is the path to Life
Card. Michael Czerny S.J.

Let me first greet the refugee students and researchers. You are living testimony to how education changes lives. It has enabled you, despite all the challenges and obstacles, to work for a better future for yourselves, your families, your people. Your presence and active participation help to guarantee the authenticity of our deliberations.

I am grateful to the Scalabrini International Migration Institute, the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Refugee & Migrant Education Network, and Villanova University Strategic Initiative for Refugees and Migrants, for organizing this international conference. There is great value in bringing together academics with officials and front-line workers from the United Nations (UNHCR) and international organizations who all focus on the issues of forced migration and integration of migrants and refugees. Responding to the most pressing challenges of our wounded world requires collaborations that bridge our respective institutions and sectors of society, with their differing scales of impact.

Throughout this gathering, we are speaking of persons and communities displaced by persecution, injustice, natural disasters, and war, as well as those whom poverty – indeed hopelessness – force to seek a place where they, and especially their children, can truly live. From my experience as a migrant-refugee, 2.5 years of age when we fled Czechoslovakia and arrived in Canada, I know that one loses a homeland and that one will never have another. One may approximate something akin to home, but there is always that residual reality that refuses to be collapsed into the present, that remainder that is forever the loss of culture, language, networks of relationships, ways of interacting with nature. In brief, it is the loss of the world in which each of us first learns how to be a graced creation of God. Between avoiding assimilation and longing for meaningful integration, it is education that offers us a chance to regain some of what was lost by being forced to leave our communities of origin as well as to gain what is new.

In this long-term process of healing wounds caused by the direct and structural violence that marks forced displacement, and of learning how to forge life-giving hope amid an ever-increasing set of reasons to despair, education is the key. Education is both a goal and a means a destination and the path to life, because in addition to its more immediate socially transformative power, it also responds to a fundamental quality of being human, to the desire to learn, to know, to transcend ourselves in the contemplation of the great questions about life and the world that need a response.

As we think about education with and for migrant and refugee communities, let us always remember that, fundamentally, education touches the mystery of the human person at its core, that sacred ground that exceeds all practical or utilitarian uses of education, however important and necessary those may be for survival, stability, and advancement in society. It is by grounding our conception of education in this wider horizon of human nature as oriented toward infinite questions and infinite responses, toward an infinite capacity to learn and to know, and toward the truth that each of us is a living question unto ourselves, that we can better ensure that education among migrant and refugee communities does not become strictly instrumental, not reduced to “I learn to earn,” but always oriented toward the fullness of the mystery of being human.

Laudato si’ makes it clear that we now live in a world where the technocratic paradigm has been globalized, where the world and life are simply reduced to a problem to be solved with technology or science, and where a subject, “using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object.”1 Pope Francis reminds us that we stand before a great cultural, spiritual, and educational challenge.2 We must not allow the educational bridges we construct simply further the very technocratic paradigm that ultimately makes the human person into a problem to be solved and no longer a mystery to be encountered. How we think about education with and for migrant and refugee communities is no exception.

Taking into account this broader horizon of education as both end and means of the mystery of being human, it is vital that an education grounded in the humanities does not become the privilege of the few. Globally, there is a growing loss of the humanities as an essential part of education. Increasingly, what used to be called the liberal arts, those ways of thinking that orient a person toward freedom in thought and action, are disappearing in favor of technical and instrumental forms of knowledge. In responding to the educational needs of migrant and refugee communities, the temptation can become to only develop programs that respond to the immediate concerns. Let’s keep the long-term possibilities open, namely the broader educational horizon that allows students to encounter the great literature of the world, philosophical ways of thinking, faith traditions, music or art or theater, medieval cultures ancient knowledge and wisdom, and a variety of worldviews that ultimately can enrich the whole person and the communities to which they belong. Forcibly displaced communities, the poor, and all who are not typically the focus of our educational institutions, in fact deserve the best formation, one which educates the intellect, the heart, and the spirit that draws the human person toward the mystery of others and of the totally Other.

For refugee parents, education is often the highest aspiration they have for their children, and the children are usually motivated and compelled to do very well. So, as we imagine pathways of education for migrant or refugee students, let the parents and communities be included in the very design of educational access. Research shows that the crisis of isolation that is experienced in the global north, but which is spreading to more and more societies, inhibits student progression in an educational program, leading to dropping out. Inversely, “children and adolescents who enjoy positive relationships with their peers, parents, and teachers experience improved academic outcomes.”3 At the heart of learning is a community who provides a certain intimacy that breaks down the patterns of isolation enforced by the othering forces of society.

Learning requires trust. Students need sufficient closeness to fall into the present time, without the overwhelming anxiety of an uncertain future and the unhealed wounds of the past. The challenge of migrant and refugee education is that it takes place amidst wounded social relationships, not after. Educational programs need to design educational processes that focus on social infrastructure, the building and strengthening of community bonds, within a given educational institution and beyond. Our institutions need to become hubs of cultural, linguistic and religious diversity where the educational goals of the institution help the students and their families to begin to locate themselves, their hopes and aspirations. The goal of education is always communal, for it is in community that we find the path of our own unique life vocation. “Vocation is not a profession. It is definitely not ‘work’ and even less a ‘job.’” Rather it is that which “stirs inside, calls out to be heard, to be followed. It beckons us
home.”4 Education is the path to life, to finding vocation, to constructing home even amid the ongoing effects of forced displacement.

The four verbs that Pope Francis commonly uses when he speaks about migrants and refugees—welcome, protect, promote, integrate—all apply to educational institutions as well.5 Each institution must conjugate these words according to its local reality and must ask whether or in what ways these verbs are given life or are absent:

Does my institution welcome migrants and refugees? Is it clear that they are welcome? Does my institution facilitate their admission or make it exceedingly difficult? Once admitted, what protective structures ensure their dignity and safety, regardless of legal status? Do we recognize differences and affirm them as good and gift? Do we promote their full potential within the diverse cultural and religious dimensions that are part of their humanity?

Catholic education should make quality formation accessible to refugees, forced migrants, and internally displaced persons and communities. This will help to fulfil the Church’s mission to promote “integral human development for the entire People of God, ensuring that no one is excluded.”6 In the words of Jesus, it will be offering “life, life in abundance” (John 10:10), or, to use the Jesuit expression, it will be contributing to their becoming men and women for others, persons who give themselves for the greater life of others.

An education that is centered on others applies to all students, including migrant and refugee students. In a Catholic university context, Pope Francis recently asked:

For whom to study? For yourselves? In order to be accountable to others? We ought to study in order to be able to educate and serve others, and to serve others with competence and confidence. Before asking ourselves if studying is useful for something, we should first make sure that it is useful for someone. It is a beautiful question for a university student to ask: whom can I serve, myself? Or do I have a heart open for another type of service? A university degree will then indicate a capacity for serving the common good. I study for myself, for work, to be useful, for the common good. This requires a great deal of balance.7

Pope Francis’s remarks invite us to think more profoundly about education as long-term and other-centered, beyond its obvious immediate utility. It can foster a search for personal and transcendent truth and meaning in each learner’s life. Beyond improving the life of the individual, education also impacts entire families and communities as parts of the educational social infrastructure.

I am reminded of the Universidad Centroamericana in El Salvador where I spent time after my Jesuit brothers were killed in 1989. This is how the UCA envisioned the purpose of a university education. They used the term “proyección social,” social outreach, to describe the way in which a university, with its knowledge and expertise, is to project itself in order to impact the national reality, the true state of a society with its injustices, exclusionary structures, violence, corruption, and all that does not foster freedom, solidarity, and respect for the rights of humanity. They envisioned and worked toward a university community whose center was outside itself. 8

Similarly, Pope Francis’s words invite students to discern and understand their education as preparation to serve a wounded humanity, touching the wounds of history.9 It is through an other-centered education that students can resist the dominant technocratic paradigm that seeks to dominate rather than liberate other persons, social structures, and the created world.

Pope Francis emphasizes the link, in a university’s search, for truth and freedom:

Do not forget that studying makes sense when it seeks the truth. When seeking it we understand that we are made in order to find it. Truth is meant to be found, for it is inviting, accessible and generous. But if we renounce the search for truth, then study becomes an instrument of power, a way to control others; it no longer serves but dominates. I must confess that it makes me sad when I discover a university that only prepares students to make money or gain power. It is overly individualistic, without community. Alma mater is a university community that helps to shape society, to create fraternity. Studying is not useful if it does not include a communal search for the truth. It is not helpful. It dominates. Whereas the truth sets us free (cf. Jn 8:32).10

Truth, in its widest sense, is a quality of being in right relationship with reality, one’s own and that of others and the world. Now, thinking specifically of forcibly displaced students, the search for truth is a heavy responsibility, and ultimately a journey of liberation that impacts a whole educational community. A community of learners is unequivocally enriched by the presence of migrants and refugees who weave the truth of their reality, of their world, with the broader fabric of the university community. Both are enriched by the educational encounter and communal search for shared truth.

However, when it comes to accessing educational opportunities, migrants and refugees face several obstacles. Countries that already struggle with providing education to their resident populations might not have the resources and capacity to provide the necessary support for migrants and refugees. Also, refugees are often denied freedom of movement and affordable access to training and education. Additionally, those who are already well educated find it nearly impossible to have their qualifications recognized.

Considering these challenges, all efforts to enhance refugee and migrant education should begin with listening to the displaced themselves. The purpose is to provide strong practical guidance to educational research, policy, and pastoral action. From an ecclesial perspective, it is important to combine scientific and theological reflection, and to involve educational institutions with the local Church when developing programs. This should include training courses for pastoral agents who can then engage in many different initiatives aimed at accompanying refugees and migrants. Regarding all these options, full or partial bursaries or scholarships are obviously a great help.

We see today that the education gap between refugees and their host community peers can be wide, especially at the higher levels of education. As of 2023, only about seven percent of refugees worldwide have access to post-secondary education and training.11 These learning and educational opportunities are essential to their success. Opportunities to work, earn a living, and be self-reliant are the most effective ways for refugees to rebuild their lives.12 Education at all levels can offer refugee children, adolescents, and youth, opportunities to participate in the local community, and even some initial integration.

As a JRS 2022 report states, post-secondary education helps make possible a sustainable livelihood that is not dependent on humanitarian aid. It allows forcibly displaced migrants and refugees to establish economic independence and a better standard of living no matter where they are or how long they remain displaced, and it provides better socio-economic inclusion within their host communities. This is particularly important because three-quarters of refugees (76 percent) have been in exile for at least five consecutive years.13

One key, concrete contribution that Catholic universities can make to empowering refugees and migrants and meeting the aforementioned challenges is the mutual recognition of academic degrees. The academic and professional qualifications of refugees and migrants often require updating and upgrading, and these are programs and courses that Catholic universities should be able to provide.

To these ends, as the Holy Father observes, “Interdisciplinary approaches, international cooperation and the sharing of resources are important elements that can permit universality to translate into shared and fruitful projects on behalf of humanity, of all men and women, and the environment in which they live and grow.” He continues by reminding us that a university is, by nature, meant to be universal and yet grounded in the local context: “With your universal openness (precisely as an “universitas”), you can enable the Catholic university to become a place where solutions for civil and cultural progress for individual persons and for humanity, marked by solidarity, are pursued with perseverance and professionalism. You can also examine that which is contingent without losing sight of that which has a more general value. Old and new problems must be studied in their specificity and immediacy, but always within a personal and global perspective.”14

Finally, you may have noticed that I never once used the expression “catholic students”. This is because my whole discourse really applies to all those whom Catholic education must be available to serving. So, I leave us with a question: how should our schools assure the religious and spiritual formation which Catholic migrants and refugees deserve? How may it be offered, if possible, in conjunction with the local Church?

Thank you for the joint Catholic educational effort that this conference represents and seeks to promote. Let us not forget that forcibly displaced persons and communities are refugees from despair, but along with the motto of the 2025 year of Jubilee we can also proclaim them to be “Pilgrims of Hope”. It is between despair and hope that they walk. Let us pray that we do everything within our power to walk with them, under the guidance of the Spirit of God.

The great camino of education is the path to life.
Thank you.

_______________

Sources:

1 Pope Francis, Laudato Si, para. 106.
2 Laudato Si, 202
3 Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social
Connection and Community (2023), 34.
4 John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination (Oxford, 2005), 167.
5 Pope Francis, Message for the 104th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, 14 January 2018.
6 Pope Francis, Praedicate Evangelium, 19 March 2022.
7 Pope Francis, Meeting with university students, Université Catholique de Louvain, 28 September 2024.
8 Cf. Michael Czerny, “La università come coscienza critica,” in Francesco Lazzari, ed., 1989 L’eccidio de San
Salvador (MGS Press, 2010), 108-110.
9 Cf. Pope Francis, Address to the Gregorian University, Rome, 5 November 2024.
10 Pope Francis, Meeting with university students, Université Catholique de Louvain, 28 September 2024.
11 The UN Refugee Agency, Refugee Education: Five years on from the Launch of the 2030 refugee Education
strategy, 2024.
12 JRS USA, A Path Forward: Building a Future for Refugee Students Through Post-Secondary Education, 2022.
13 Cf. JRS USA, A Path Forward.
14 Pope Francis, International conference for leaders of catholic universities, New frontiers for university leaders: The future of health and the university ecosystem, Roma, 4 November 2019.

This month, we feature Pangea Educational Development, a US-based not-for-profit-organization with the vision to reach a 100% literate world by 2050 by helping children learn to read and inspiring them to read more often. We spoke to Brenda Apeta, the new Executive Director, who brings a wealth of experience and a fresh perspective to the organization’s mission.  

“Our main objectives are to improve literacy rates by 30% in rural Uganda’s refugee and low-income communities within three years and to provide ongoing support to teachers through educational programs, educator training, and tailored learning materials. Our efforts will empower them with the skills needed to enhance literacy development. 

Current initiatives

This year, we introduced online training in gender-responsive pedagogy for teachers in Imvepi Refugee Camp, in collaboration with GRÓ GEST, supported by UNESCO and hosted by the University of Iceland. 

Additionally, Project Backpack 4, a home-based literacy initiative integrating technology caregiver involvement, and ongoing feedback was introduced to support learners of all ages, incorporating play and peer learning to enhance literacy. By opening a reading space in Imvepi Refugee Settlement, we have been making significant progress in our mission to empower communities and foster literacy. The enthusiasm for inclusive education from both parents and children has been remarkable, with many parents joining our programs to better support their children’s learning.

Impact

Our initiatives have led to 450 young learners reading independently and 98 teachers integrating gender-responsive activities. Adults are also joining to improve literacy, showcasing the program’s success in enhancing learning for all. Our aim is to expand Project Backpack to more communities and launch an online library to further enhance access to educational resources. 

Patrick Matugga, one of our beneficiaries of the Online Gender-Responsive training, says: “Joining the Pangea online gender-responsive training transformed my teaching and personal life. I now give equal attention to all students, boosting girls’ confidence and participation. The training has also taught me to treat my daughters equally, strengthening our family bonds and inspiring community awareness of gender respect.”

Challenges and Opportunities

Resource constraints may affect the quality and scope of our initiatives, which we aim to address through partnerships with other NGOs, government grants, and private donors.  We have learned though, that community engagement is key to our success. We plan to build on this by fostering deeper relationships with our beneficiaries and continuously adapting our programs to meet their needs.

Collaboration

We are a proud member of RME Network since 2020 and hope to benefit from the network of knowledgeable organizations and individuals but also contribute to knowledge creation and distribution based on our own experience and practices. We are interested in collaborations within RME Network to co-develop educational resources, share expertise in program implementation, and enhance the quality and reach of our projects.

Please get in touch if you are interested in collaborating and joining us in our mission. Together, we can create a lasting impact on the educational landscape of the communities we serve.”

Contact:

Pangea Educational Development
Brenda Apeta
brenda.apeta@pangeaeducation.org
+256 774 715 633
www.pangeaeducation.org

Q: René, you have recently published the book, “Strangers in the Bible: Loved but not embraced?”. What is it about?

René Micallef: “The book aims to do two things. It is in part a methodology book. It teaches people involved in ethics and social reflection and action – such as people accompanying migrants or teaching about migration – how to sojourn as strangers in the land of the Bible. Bible-land is inhabited today, almost exclusively, by charismatic preachers and experts of scholarly exegesis. It is time for the rest of us to step inside this territory and linger there, even while recognizing that we are not the “natives” of Bible-land and need to adapt to the strangeness of this environment. Hence, the first objective of the book is to bridge the gap between exegesis and ethics – and, by extension, also social and political thought and action. The second aim is to give a concrete example of how this bridging can be achieved. I do this by exploring the topic of the stranger in the Bible. I analyze various texts which speak about the condition of strangerhood, and which suggest different attitudes towards sojourners, migrants and refugees, in order to construct a complex picture of the many different voices in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures on this issue. Then, I present some takeaways for ethical and social reflection and action today.”

Q: Could you elaborate on how you approach this integration?

René Micallef: “There are texts in the Bible which speak about loving the stranger as one’s own people, and others which suggest bashing the heads of the children of foreigners against rocks. There are texts which present a woman from a despised people – the Moabites – falling in love with Israel’s people and Israel’s God, emigrating to Bethlehem and eventually marrying a Jew and giving rise to the Davidic dynasty, which is the quintessential Jewish royal line. And there are texts which obligate any Jews who had married foreign wives to repudiate (divorce) them and abandon the children born of such marriages, seeing such contact with strangers as a grievous offense towards God. These texts even name and shame all the Jews involved in such marriages. In my book, I explore some of these texts, using tools such as rhetorical and narrative analysis, as well as the results of historical and critical analysis, and help the reader to contextualize and make sense of such striking contrasts. There is no recipe in the Bible teaching us how to deal with migration. Rather, it shines a light on the complexity of human reality and on the ills of certain extreme attitudes, like xenophobia, on the one hand, and the disregard of one’s own identity, on the other, and explores different ways of navigating it prudently.”

Q: Do you also explore texts of the New Testament?

René Micallef: ”In the New Testament, one of the best-known stories is that of the Good Samaritan. We often forget that in this story it is the foreigner (a despised Samaritan, often seen as a sort of hooligan or potential terrorist) who saves the native victim. Elsewhere in the New Testament, Christian communities are seen as migrants inhabiting a foreign land, and this is not just an issue of legal status in ancient cities, but also serves as a central metaphor of what living as a Christian on Earth entails.”

Q: What inspired you to explore this particular topic?

René Micallef: “I have volunteered in faith-based NGOs with migrants and refugees, and I see that in such contexts there is a desire to explain to the non-Christian staff and to the migrants why Christians do such work and what inspires them. They want to make it clear that they aren’t doing this for the money, or to take advantage of the vulnerability of migrants and refugees in order to proselytize them. Rather, they do this gratuitously because they believe in compassion and justice for marginalized groups, and this belief is rooted in their faith. But it is often hard to link that faith with Scripture, which in such contexts is used very selectively. Activists and pastors cherry pick the texts that seem to speak more clearly about loving the stranger, but ignore the rest of the texts. My book seeks to approach Scriptures honestly. It allows such activists and pastors, as well as ethics students in universities, to dig deeper into these popular texts. It also explores ways how a compassionate and justice-seeking reader can deal with the texts that are more hostile towards the “other”, and which are sometimes cherry-picked and exploited by xenophobes, racists and other migrant-hating trolls on social media, and sometimes even by politicians seeking the votes of pious Christians by fabricating irrational fears about mass migration.”

Q: Your work has been praised for its depth and thoughtfulness in examining the concept of “the stranger”, both in scripture and in today’s society. What challenges did you encounter in this interdisciplinary approach, and how did you address them?

René Micaleff: “Often, in our universities, scientific disciplines are locked into silos. Exegetes often champion specific exegetical techniques and don’t communicate well with other exegetes using other techniques, and most are so specialized in one section of the Bible that they don’t like to follow an issue through the whole of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. My approach not only engages various exegetical positions, but brings in political science, ethics, philosophy, sociology, history, and other disciplines seeking to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on a very sensitive and complex topic. My book occupies a niche which risks being abandoned in today’s book market – it is not overly technical and scholarly, nor is it truly “popular”, but seeks to further educate learned readers who want to deepen their knowledge of an issue in a rigorous manner. I’m not sure all the experts will be happy with what I have achieved, but it is a serious attempt to overcome the barriers and confines of our academic landscape, sit down with “strangers”, and have a serious discussion on a very important issue.”

More info:

Strangers in the Bible: Loved but not Embraced?
by Rene Micallef

Published by Paulist Press International, U.S. (6. Februar 2024)
ISBN: 978-08091-4996-4

Ashish Gadnis is co-founder and CEO of BanQu. Both BanQu and Ashish are founding members of the Refugee & Migrant Education Network. BanQu was selected as one of The Meaningful Business 100 of 2020. Ashish Gadnis was also recently named to the TIME Magazine 2019 Innovation List. The MB 100 recognizes the people who are the driving forces behind products, services or projects that combine purpose and profit.

June 18, 2020 Two days ahead of World Refugee Day, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, appeals to countries worldwide to do far more to find homes for millions of refugees and others displaced by conflict, persecution, or events seriously disturbing public order.

In their annual Global Trends report, released today, UNHCR recorded that an unprecedented 79.5 million people were displaced as of the end of 2019 and that forced displacement is now affecting more than one per cent of humanity–1 in every 97 people.

The report also notes diminishing prospects for refugees when it comes to hopes of any quick end to their plight, with fewer and fewer of those who flee able to return home. In the 1990s, on average 1.5 million refugees were able to return home each year. Over the past decade that number has fallen to around 385,000, meaning that growth in displacement is today far outstripping solutions.

“We are witnessing a changed reality in that forced displacement nowadays is not only vastly more widespread but is simply no longer a short-term and temporary phenomenon,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. “People cannot be expected to live in a state of upheaval for years on end, without a chance of going home, nor a hope of building a future where they are. We need a fundamentally new and more accepting attitude towards all who flee, coupled with a much more determined drive to unlock conflicts that go on for years and that are at the root of such immense suffering.”

UNHCR’s Global Trends report shows that of the 79.5 million people displaced at the end of last year, 45.7 million were people who had fled to other areas of their own countries. The rest were people displaced elsewhere, 4.2 million of them being people awaiting the outcome of asylum requests, while 29.6 million were refugees and others forcibly displaced outside their country.

The increased displacement figures, from 70.8 million at the end of 2018, is a result of two main factors. First, is a worrying growth in displacement in 2019, particularly in Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sahel, Yemen and Syria (now in its tenth year of conflict and accounting on its own for 13.2 million refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people–a sixth of the world’s total).

Second is better documentation of the situation of Venezuelans outside their country, many of whom are not legally registered as refugees or asylum-seekers, but for whom protection-sensitive arrangements are required.

Within this massive figure–70.9 million displaced–are individuals and very personal crises. An estimated 30-34 million displaced children, tens of thousands of them unaccompanied, outnumber the entire populations of Australia, Denmark and Mongolia combined. Children make up roughly 45% of displaced population despite comprising only 25% of the global population. Meanwhile, only 4% of the displaced are aged 60 and above, far below that of the world population of 12%–a statistic that speaks to the tearing apart of families and generations as well as the immeasurable heartbreak, desperation, sacrifice of displaced persons.

8 facts about forced displacement

• 100 million people (low estimate) were forced to flee their homes in the past decade, seeking refugee either in or outside their countries. That is more people fleeing than the entire population of Egypt, the world’s 14^th most populous country.
• Forced displacement has almost doubled since 2010 (41 million then vs 79.5 million now).
• 80% of the world’s displaced people are in countries or territories affected by acute food insecurity and malnutrition – many of them countries facing climate and other disaster risk.
• More than three-quarters of the world’s refugees (77%) are in situations of long-term displacement–for example the situation in Afghanistan, now in its fifth decade.
• More than 8 out of every 10 refugees (85%) are in developing countries, generally a country neighboring the one they fled.
• Five countries account for two-thirds of people displaced across borders: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar.
• Global Trends Report counts all major displaced and refugee populations, including the 5.6 million Palestine refugees who fall under the care of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine.
• The 2030 Sustainable Development commitment of “leaving no one behind” now explicitly includes refugees, thanks to a new indicator on refugees approved by the UN Statistical Commission in March this year.

Borders have been a fixed item in the news lately. Mr Trump makes sure we keep them at the forefront of our mind, even during the D-Day celebrations.

I hail from Malta, and have been living as a migrant in Italy for the last six years; voting in Rome for my Italian representatives in the European Parliament was a welcome experience for me this year. In recent times, I have the impression that when I introduce myself here in Italy and say that I come from Malta, more and more Italians seem to know my country and have recently visited it. It seems that, at least, some borders are slowly dissolving.

Between boundless fortresses and walled continents

For centuries, Malta had the reputation of being a fortress island, with more than 25 km of fortifications only on the coast. The Knights of Malta used the rents of their immense properties on the Continent, and the profits of their corsair warfare against the Ottomans, to fortify every possible point of landing with avant-garde military technology. The fear of the Turkish or “Muslim” invasion has shaped the psyche of the Islanders. Later on, during the Second World War, fear of an Italian invasion prevailed: the British government installed a secret and rudimentary radar system that made it possible to render ineffective the incessant bombardments by Axis forces, and thus to ensure that Malta could honour its reputation as an “impregnable fortress”.

Ironically, however, the “fortress” economy became unsustainable already in the nineteenth century, and between 1814 and 1980 many Maltese crossed the border, seeking their fortune elsewhere. Many have returned home after a few decades with new ideas and compelling stories. The fascination towards the “other” has allowed us to imagine a radical paradigm shift in the economic focus of the island: from a military base that served to push back the foreigners, to tourism, which now has the islanders rolling out the red carpet for them. Certainly, today as before, white citizens hailing from Nordic countries are welcomed much more than the people of the South or the East, but in the last few years, the economic boom and the reduction of irregular arrivals have blunted xenophobia, because cheap labour is needed everywhere.

”The EU risks becoming a fortress,
ever more eager to build walls rather than bridges.”

An unusual encounter during my last visit to Malta was that with a Swedish immigrant, who had just come to Malta searching for a job in the gaming sector. I met him in a silent, sleepy village square, far from the tourist hotspots. For a moment, I was surprised by the big transformations happening in my country.

The curious thing is that while Malta, the fortress island, is becoming more cosmopolitan, and while the Maltese feel more European and benefit from the disappearance of the internal borders in Europe, the EU risks becoming a fortress, ever more eager to build walls rather than bridges.

A confined brotherhood?

A bold document, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayyib on February 4 of this year, at the end of the pontifical visit to Abu Dhabi, speaks enthusiastically about “human brotherhood”. Certainly, there is a bond that unites all as members of the human race, a form of solidarity that demands of us respect for the dignity and the life of others, and that renders immoral any attempt to justify terrorism by appealing to religion or ideology. Many would call that bond of solidarity philanthropia, mutual recognition, humanitas or even philoxenia, but would not accept to call it “brotherhood”: a boundless brotherhood could conjure up problematic internationalist visions like those of Anarcharsis Cloots or Karl Marx.

”It is natural in human groups to look
for where the boundary lies.”

The Christian fraternitas which shapes Pope Francis’ thought, or the Muslim umma of which Imam al-Tayyib is a member, are brotherhoods that exceed many borders — those of ethnicity, race, language, nation, citizenship, gender —  but nonetheless constitute an identifiable group within the human race, distinct from other groups. 

Up to a certain point a supranational “brotherhood” is being born in the EU: even if we find it hard to feel ourselves citizens and brothers “European” in the political sense, the fact that strong ties between us are being born between us, we see well from the toils of Brexit. However, it is natural in human groups to look for where the boundary lies: if all human beings were really like “brothers” and “sisters” to me, it would be as if I had no brothers and sisters, because one cannot have a special relationship with everyone without make that “special” element vain.

Back to reasoning

Having said this, I think we should also promote a sense of multiple belonging in today’s world, one of belonging to many overlapping brotherhoods. This can help us challenge the nationalist narratives of a single, closed form of belonging, that are once again giving rise to regimes nourished by incestuous notions of social fraternity. Paolo Gervasi’ research on Fascist literature from the 1930s is a sober reminder of a world based on feeling-good emotions and fun, where negative emotions were suppressed. All should be well now that a strong leader has taken over: we should sit back and enjoy the show as he or she rids us of all the “bad things” and “bad people” that supposedly caused the latest recession and all the discomfort it brought. A new computer game called “We happy few” by Compulsion Games offers a brutal yet creative way for young people to immerse themselves in such a logic and look behind the happy mask.

”We need to dissolve borders which keep knowledge
and power in the hands of the ‘happy few’.”

Of course, we need to start fighting back xenophobia and anti-refugee rhetoric with emotions if we are to prevail: most people in our western societies have become too dependent on the good feelings, hopes and promises that today’s political strongmen are selling to even consider facing the hard facts regarding today’s migrants and refugees. 

But playing on feelings cannot be a long-term strategy. We need to eventually bring people back to reason, to a calm and thoughtful approach to the phenomenon of human mobility in a globalized world.

Borderless education

That is why, the long-term solution to border hysteria and wall-building fixations can only be found in borderless education, offered by bounded educational brotherhoods working together. That is what the RME Network is about: educating people about refugees and migrants, while also educating the refugees and migrants themselves, through international networking of educational institutions. It brings together universities and non-profit organizations that see themselves as open to collaboration with one another, rather than as impregnable fortresses of knowledge. My hope, as a founding committee member, is that this network will help us start to dissolve the borders which keep knowledge and power in the hands of the “happy few”.

René Micallef is an Associate Professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome where he teaches Moral Theology and Social Ethics and specializes in topics such as migration, conflict, and human rights. He is a member of the founding committee of the RME Network.

This blog post was first published on Il Regno on 14 May 2019. It has been translated and modified for the website of RME Network.

Photo credit: Fr. Marc Rizzetto, SJ

If you want to support the work of the RME Network, or if you are a university or not-for-profit-organization and would like to collaborate, please do get in touch.

When contacting Ashish Gadnis, there is a good chance he will answer from anywhere but from his home in Austin, Texas. He might spend a Wednesday in Rwanda, and then by Friday, he is already in Brazil, before taking a flight to Myanmar on a Sunday. Gadnis is on a mission: to help lift 100 million people out of poverty by 2023.

Gadnis knows what poverty is; he grew up in Mumbai, India, in the 1970s. The options to get out of poverty were limited. “I did not want to stay in that ration line. I realized that I could break the cycle of poverty if I could get a job as a software programmer,” he recalls.

However, as a 20-year-old Indian, it wasn’t really about education; it was about getting out of the country: “That was the social dogma at the time: If you wanted a better life, you had to go.” And so, his “second life”, as he calls it, started when he immigrated to Colombia, and then, in 1994, to the United States. Ten years later, he became the Founder and CEO of a successful IT company.

Gadnis never forgot the poverty he had left behind, and he wanted to do something to end it. “I hated being poor in India,” he remembers, “yet, I never saw that what I was doing back then was going to have a long-term impact on ending poverty.”

”I will never forget the poverty I left behind”

Gadnis sold his IT company in 2012 and went to the Congo, working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID). “I always like to tell people that my first life was where I was born and raised, and the second life was when I traveled the world, built a business, and finally got out of poverty. My third life started after I sold my last company,” he affirms.

Congolese poverty was shocking even for someone who grew up standing in food lines. Another big shock was that the big aid agencies were not really changing the situation for the people. “It was more like someone had hit me over the head with a massive brick and said, ‘you are doing exactly what everybody does because you look at people in poverty from pity. The minute you do that, you lose the ability to provide dignity.’ That changed everything for me,” Gadnis remembers.

He started his new venture, BanQu, the same year, after partnering with a Congolese woman farmer to open up a new bank account. “We went to the bank agent, and he told the woman that he couldn’t bank her because she didn’t have an economic record. So I told her that I could bank her! That is how the name BanQu came about and how the business idea kicked off.” 

”But I can bank you!!”

BanQu provides an economic identity for people using the same blockchain coding that is the basis for virtual currencies such as bitcoin. When using blockchain, everyone who participates in a transaction gets an equal and secured copy of it.

The clients of BanQu are large companies that are buying and sourcing coffee, cacao or jeans from people who live in extreme poverty. Before, the farmer or jean sewer was anonymous, but by using blockchain they are given an economic identity. If there is a transaction, the ‘virtual’ ID of the farmer is notified, and he or she gets a message on their mobile phone, allowing them to prove that they are “bankable” — even if they have never used a computer in their life.

“So when a mother sells her crop to a large brand, she receives a receipt and payment — and, most importantly, dignity. With a text message, she can prove that she is bankable. She can prove that she exists. And that makes all the difference.”

What is crucial in this business is humility, emphasizes Gadnis. “We don’t say that we’ve pulled people out of poverty. That would be very arrogant. We just say that we are enabling paths out of extreme poverty.”

”We need to break the cycle of extreme poverty.”

BanQu mostly works with farmers, but increasingly, it provides refugees with records of their education or work history. The BanQu platform connects “the last mile to the global economy,” says Gadnis, “the poorest farmers and laborers — and refugees. Our quest is to support the most vulnerable and marginalized in breaking the cycle of extreme poverty, those who have been in a camp for 20 years with no future and being unbanked.”

BanQu is one of the founding members of RME Network. Gadnis expects to collaborate with universities and not-for profit-organizations worldwide to create and expand educational opportunities for refugees and forced migrants. “We are at a critical crossroads in human history where disparity, discrimination, and forced migration continue to rise,” he says. “We need to do something concrete and meaningful to remedy this. We have to enable refugees to have opportunities like the rest of us do so that they can participate equally in the global economy. The RME Network is one such concrete initiative, and we are glad to be part of it.”

”We have to enable refugees to have opportunities like the rest of us do.”

So far, more than 70,000 people have been supported by BanQu, and the hope is to help 200,000 more this year. Ultimately, Gadnis’ goal for BanQu is to increase that number to millions of people within the next five years.

Ashish Gadnis was a keynote speaker at the international conference of RME Network on “Global Initiatives in Refugee and Migrant Education”, which took place at Manhattan College, New York City, November 15-17, 2018. 

For more on Ashish Gadnis and BanQu, please see IG World, Raconteur, this video by Anheuser-Busch, one of BanQu’s clients, visit BanQu.co  — or simply contact Ashish directly on ashish.gadnis@banquapp.com.

If you want to support the work of RME Network, or if you are a university or not-for-profit-organization working in the field of migration or education for and about refugees, and would like to become a member or collaborate, please get in touch.

Editor’s note: Parts of this blog post were first published on cruxnow.com on 13 November 2018. It has been modified for the website of RME Network with the kind approval of its author, Dr Paulina Guzik.

How can universities and NGOs best work together? — Just one of the questions that the speakers of the first plenary session on the third and final day of the RME Network conference tried to explore.

For Joan Rosenhauer, Executive Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service USA, there is a huge potential for partnerships, but it is not an easy task, she admits. “We have to acknowledge that we have different interests. There is an overlap though, so we have to look at ways to work together,” she said, “and the best way is in programs that are at the heart of universities: providing education.”

Doing research in areas like, for example, feasibility, evaluation, monitoring, learning, best practices, innovation or the markets, as well as advocacy, are equally important fields where collaboration between universities and NGOs can create a win-win situation.

Rosenhauer stressed, however, that the needs of the refugees should, at all times, be at the core of any partnership. “Refugees are committed to education but they don’t have the luxury to get it for its own sake. They have to make a livelihood.” It is therefore crucial for universities and NGOs to reflect on which educational programs they design and offer to refugees in order to support them in building a life for themselves.

In his response, Dr. Stephen Rasche, Vice Chancellor at the University of Erbil in Iraq, found clear words: “Academia walks too slowly when it comes to migrants and refugees. (…) It is about getting on the ground and doing something,” he called upon the universities. “Move! Don’t just sit there and discuss and research (…) while the world is blowing up around you!” For Rasche, the sponsoring of students and sharing of relevant research are two main areas that are crucial in terms of universities’ involvement in contributing to tackling the refugees’ crisis. “There is no better investment than to support students to get a degree and then being able to go back home to support their country,” he said.

The workshop theme of the last conference day was “Research and Action”. Dr. Georgette Bennett, Founder of the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, called upon universities to take on three challenges: to identify the fears and misconceptions about Syrian refugees, to respond with facts, supported by evidence-based research, and to commit to academic and personal action, e.g. undertaking research and taking tangible steps to assist Syrian refugees at their institutions. In an inspiring talk, she encouraged universities to help eliminate the “three great fears”: the fear of negative economic impact, the fear of terrorism and Islamophobia. Research shows that there is no basis for those fears. “We can overcome these fears with the right kind of messaging,” Bennett said, “Policymakers need data, but it is stories that move the public opinion.”

The RME Network conference in New York City was concluded by a keynote on expanding the social responsibility of universities given by Dr. Anthony Cortese, Co-Founder of the Intentional Endowment Network. “It is part of our social responsibility to help others“, he said. For Cortese, it is crucial to “teach broad sustainability on the campus (…) and to produce education and knowledge to create a sustainable world.”

The conference might be over, but the practical work in and beyond the Refugee & Migrant Education Network has just begun. We would like to thank the speakers and all participants of our 2019 conference for their contributions, inspiring talks and powerful messages, and look forward to working with you in the future on turning hopes into realities.

More voices of Day 3

“Everywhere I go, I find refugees that are anxious to get an education.”

“Advocacy is a critical task that universities can take on.”

“We need a clear understanding of how we want to overcome challenges. If we achieve this, we can save lives.”
Joan Rosenhauer

“Be effective early!”

“We need to ask ourselves critically: Are we really solving the problem?”
Dr. Stephen Rasche

“We don’t have leadership at the top, so we need bottom-up pressure.”
Dr. Georgette Bennett